


Bad Ideas

by ineffablenerd



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Food, M/M, Pining, Pining Crowley (Good Omens), Possibly Unrequited Love, Unrequited Love, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic, so much pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-28 22:49:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21399913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineffablenerd/pseuds/ineffablenerd
Summary: Hiding his eyes from Humanity isn't the only reason Crowley wears the glasses.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 84





	Bad Ideas

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to KannaOphelia for going through this and fixing all the typos. I don't know how sentences work.

Hiding his eyes from Humanity wasn't the only reason Crowley wore the glasses.

The other reason was a secret. A secret he had never told another soul, much less anyone without one. He hadn't even allowed himself to know about it for a few thousand years. But at some point in the last 6000 Years it had gotten to big to hide it from himself any longer.

The reason, right now, was sitting across from him at a table for two in a _charming_ little Levantine restaurant in SOHO, currently _experiencing_ their famed liquorice and goats cheese ice cream1.

Crowley watched the angel's mouth wrap around the tiniest specks of one ingredient, then the other, then combinations. Watching the angel eat was an experience in itself. Hearing the soft noises whenever he found the perfect bite of whatever it was he was eating at the time. Eating wasn't even the right word for what the angel was doing to his food. He didn't just _eat_. He never wolfed down a quick lunch or picked at reheated Leftovers. Aziraphale savoured every bite he took, and never consumed anything if that wasn't _exactly_ what he wanted to try in that particular moment. That could stem from the fact he didn't actually _need_ to ingest nutrients any more than Crowley needed to nap or drink coffee, but it was an indulgence. It would have been a sin, if anyone who saw what the angel was doing to his food could see it as anything less than a religious experience.

Crowley made it into a sin, only his sin wasn't gluttony. While the feeling rising in him whenever he watched the angel do the things he loved could have been called a _hunger_, no food could ever satiate what it was that he truly desired. To taste the cream off of Aziraphales lips. To be the one making the Angel emit those hums and gasps of pleasure. To run his fingers through that always perfectly tousled, cloud-like head of hair and over his soft broad chest, find out if underneath all of these layers of proper, two-centuries-old clothing his skin looked just like in Rome, when communal baths were the norm and everyone saw everything of everyone without it being so tantalizingly sinful.

Bad Ideas. That's what these thoughts were. Really Bad Ideas. They way they weaselled themselves into every situation. Every interaction. Knowing, that that's all they were. Bad Ideas.

Indulging them was even worse. A _what if_ here. A _only this one thing_ there. But they all lead to the same place.

Aziraphale looking at him in disgust. Shying away. Running, screaming, smiting. Crowley had imagined every single possible outcome.

Every situation where he could indulge in those fantasies. And every time the fantasies ended in ruins.

He knew where the Bad Ideas lead. But when he wasn't careful they still slipped through.

Saving a briefcase full of books, just to brush their hands together in the burning ruins of a church. The still sacred ground of it burning less than the trace of soft fingers on his own.

Offering a lift, his life, anything, with a tartan flask of Holy Water in his lap, in his treasured Bentley. Desperation creeping through his every word because _could this mean_? it didn't. It never did.

Pushing the angel up against a wall, because he wasn't _nice_ he was nothing. It had taken everything in him not to close that last breath between them, make him understand how not _nice_ he really was. And then, when they had been interrupted, that stupid human thinking they had been doing exactly what Crowley _wanted_ them to be doing, he barely had been able to stand. Wanting to curl around his angel or curl up in a puddle and Die. Anything other than seeing Aziraphale so calm about the situation that left him so utterly breathless. And he hadn't even been the one pressed against a wall.

Crowley thought all of these things and mapped all of the angel's face, again and again, and kept refocusing his stare on the angel's mouth while he ate. There was the tiniest speck of licorice right next to the deliciously curved cupid's bow and it was driving him _mad_. There was nothing he could do. Tell the angel and thus admit he had been staring at his mouth? That would defy the entire point of the glasses.

They could shield his treacherous eyes while he cast all the longing glances, yearning stares, and burning looks he wanted, he just needed to keep the rest of his face under control while he did it. And he had roughly two thousand years of training, six if you counted the time without the glasses where he had to keep looking at the angel like _he_ had hung the stars to a minimum.

So he said nothing, the _need_ to brush away that black spot with his thumb, to press his finger against those perfectly pink lips then lick them clean slowly but surely overwhelming him.

Or better yet, skip the hands, just kiss the crumb away just grab the angel by the perfectly perched bow tie and drag him across the table, who cared about the ice cream.

Crowley folded his hands and rested his chin on them, elbows on the table, a sin to proper restaurant etiquette, to hide the tremble in them as a dozen different scenarios of him climbing over the table and replacing the ice cream in the angel's mouth with his tongue raced through his head.

_Just keep your face neutral. He can't see your eyes so just make sure your face is neutral_

It was a good thing he didn't actually need a beating heart to pump blood through his veins, so with enough willpower, he was able to keep it out of his face to keep him from blushing. Even all of his demonic willpower wasn't enough to keep it rushing to other places though.

The angel eating so damn slowly was a blessing and a curse. A blessing because he could stare at him for, if he planned the menu well enough ahead, hours, pretending to be the spoon Aziraphale licked meticulously clean after each bite. He had to know what he was doing. The way he tortured him, showing him what that tongue was capable of with no chance in Heaven or Hell of that promise ever becoming reality. The curse, the torture of having to sit there, minutes dripping by like eternities, every bite taking as long as a bird turning a mountain into a pebble by sharpening his beak. His legs pressed together, as all the blood he was willing not to flow into his face, made him secretly shift in his chair. Trying to not make it obvious what he was feeling to anyone potentially, accidentally, glancing in the general vicinity of his lap.

Aziraphale was almost done with his dessert. As he scooped up the last melted drops of ice-cream and finally _finally_ licked the blessed crumb from his lips, Crowley silently calmed down his beating heart and willed all his blood to where it was supposed to be, less it betrayed the desire his glasses so carefully hid.

"My treat" he smirked through sharpened teeth, whipping out a black credit card and waving it at the waiter.

Aziraphale did something of an embarrassed wiggle, saying something along the lines of "Oh, I couldn't", all while doing exactly nothing to stop Crowley from paying for their dinner with Hell's money.

Crowley, while signing the check with exactly 6 pence as a tip, was still faster than Aziraphale in getting up and getting their coats. This was aided by the fact, that Aziraphale first placed a crisp 50 pound Note on the table, cancelling out Crowley's bad deed with a good one, like clockwork.

When the angel finally stood, Crowley was already standing by, holding out Aziraphale's coat at the precise height to comfortably shrug into it. A casual motion. Nothing to eager. Just something that acquaintances do. Pay for dinner to see that little glimmer in his eyes. The one he got when he did something that was just the tiniest bit naughty. Do a small bad deed like being a bad tipper, just to get the angel to make that waiters day. Thin hands, brushed over soft arms, trying not to linger in a way that was noticeable.

They left the restaurant, the crisp autumn air a stark contrast to the warm rich smell of the restaurant. Crowley closed his eyes and centered himself for his next question.

"Where to now, Angel?", His mouth curled around the endearment with six thousand years of practiced ease. What came first? The pet name or the one that originated it. Crowley knew. Did Aziraphale?

What was it, other than a reminder of what he could never have? He was a demon. He wasn't allowed Grace in his life. They were adversaries. Unlikely companions maybe. But not more. Never more.

"I'll think I might have an early night. There's this bunch of students who come by during exam season to look at the books2:. They don't ever want to buy any and they ask such precise questions..."

Crowley nodded with perfect nonchalance. 6000 years of training will get you a long way in pretending to feel a certain way. Pretending he couldn't care less if he spent the night sitting opposite the angel, getting drunk and watching him through his glasses until the angel was too drunk to notice, than watching him without them.

"Of course." there was no disappointment in his voice. There never was. He knew better than that.

"Give you a ride home?" _Please. Just a few more minutes_. Sitting next to each other in an enclosed space. Breathing in the angel's warm scent like it was the oxygen he pretended to need in public.

"I think I'll walk today thank you. It's only a few minutes after all" the Angel smiled apologetically, "Think of your Carbon footprint."

_Carbon footprint_. they had _just_ stopped the Apocalypse.

"'tis my Job to have a carbon footprint." but he didn't press any further. Not seeming too eager was his real job. It wasn't spreading dissent, or sin, or temptation. Not the thousand little ways he inconvenienced humans at every turn every day, not the big fish he got told to bring in every once in a while. All this paled in comparison to the effort it took, not to linger every time Aziraphale was close to him. To rip his gaze away and look at the road every once in a while, when they were carpooling to the next temptation/blessing combo of the week.

Not tonight though. Tonight he would drive home alone once again. He waved goodbye at the angel, the times of polite kisses on the cheeks being gone for centuries, and watched his broad back and soft beige coat dissappear behind the next corner. There was still time to run after him. Turn him around by the shoulder and press him against the next wall, doing, what he wanted to do at the convent-turned-corporate-retreat, show him what he really felt, all disguises discarded, not with words but with lips against lips, Heavenily Body pressed against Hellish one. But he didn't.

Instead he turned around and slowly made his way to the Bentley. The streets were empty so there was no reason for pretend swagger.

Behind the wheel his eyes automatically fell on the passengers seat. Like he didn't know it was empty. Only the tiniest trace of Aziraphale lingered in the car. It was barely noticable. Crowley noticed anyway.

He sighed and turned the ignition. One more evening gone. One more evening he didn't take his chance. Six thousand years and counting.

* * *

  1. Real Restaurant in SOHO called [CERU](https://www.cerurestaurants.com/soho) ↩

  2. Thanks to that one Tumblr Post about Aziraphale being really nice to University students because they can't afford to buy books but really love looking at them and asking Good Questions. ↩

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry. I just needed Crowley to suffer a bit. I have a gazillion other fics where he won't suffer (as much) or at least gets to do the kissing thing in the end.
> 
> This was inspired partly by the song Bad Ideas by Tessa Violet (stream the Album of the same name now on anywhere)


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